7/29/2019 The Human Brain is the Biggest Brain
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The Human Brain Is the Biggest Brain
We know that dogs arent as smart as humans, but are humans only
smarter because their brains
are bigger?
Mario Lalich/Stone/Getty Images
Many animals can use their brains to do some of the things that
humans can do, such as finding
creative ways to solve problems, exhibiting self-awareness,
showingempathytoward others andlearning how to use tools. But
although scientists can't agree on a single definition of what
makes
a person intelligent, they do generally agree that humans are
the most intelligent creatures onEarth. In our "bigger is better"
society, then, it might stand to reason that humans should have
the
biggest brainsof all animals, because we're the smartest. Well,
not exactly.
The average adult human brain weighs about 3 pounds (1,361
grams). Thedolphin-- a very
intelligent animal -- also has a brain that weighs about 3
pounds on average. But a spermwhale,
not generally considered to be as intelligent as a dolphin, has
a brain that weighs about 17pounds (7,800 grams). On the small end
of the scale, a beagle's brain is about 2.5 ounces (72
grams), and anorangutan's brain is about 13 ounces (370 grams).
Bothdogsand orangutans are
pretty smart animals, but they have small brains. A bird like
asparrowhas a brain that weighsless than half an ounce (1
gram).
You may notice something important in all of those comparisons.
An average dolphin's bodyweighs about 350 pounds (158.8 kilograms),
while a sperm whale can weigh as much as 13 tons.
In general, the larger the animal, the larger the skull, and
therefore, the larger the brain. Beagles
are fairly small dogs, at about 25 pounds (11.3 kg) maximum, so
it stands to reason that theirbrains would also be smaller. The
relationship between brain size and intelligence isn't really
about the actual weight of the brain; it's about the ratio of
brain weight to the entire body weight.
For humans, that ratio is about 1-to-50. For most othermammals,
it's 1-to-180, and for birds, it's
1-to-220. The brain takes up more weight in a human than it does
in other animals.
Intelligence also has to do with the different components of the
brain. Mammals have very large
cerebral cortexes, unlikebirds,fishorreptiles. The cerebellum in
mammals houses the cerebralhemispheres, which are responsible for
higher functions like memory, communication and
thinking. Humans have the largest cerebral cortex of all
mammals, relative to the size of their
brains.
Heads up; we're looking at a grislier brain myth next.
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